HIALEAH, Fla. ā Local 10 Newsā continuing investigation into Hialeahās 911 call center has discovered that the city is now telling a councilman heāll have to pay nearly $7,000 out of pocket to access documents heās requested.
And the councilman says heās just trying to do the job voters elected him to do. Hialeahās mayor is describing his records request as an unauthorized investigation. And at stake? Public safety.
City records documented troublesome deficiencies, abandoned calls and answer rates below the stateās minimum standard.
āThe minimum standard: 90 percent of all 911 calls have to be answered within 10 seconds; that is is the minimum standard, the city of Hialeah was and is not meeting that threshold,ā said Hialeah councilman Bryan Calvo, who flagged the problems at a council meeting last spring. ā(In) March of this year, when we had several 911 operators, the employees themselves, they came to a council meeting, it was three individuals, and they clearly said in public record, āWe have a crisis in our department, we donāt have enough personnel.ā They even alleged, Look, we are answering calls in the bathroom, in the middle of our break, we need people, we need drastic action.ā That was quite shocking to me, I didnāt know there was an issue up until that point when they came to the council,ā Calvo said.
A 2022 report commissioned and paid for by the city of Hialeah and performed by the Jorge Colina Group (Colina is a retired Miami police chief) found that the cityās dispatch unit is āwoefully understaffed . . . five years ago, they experienced a mass exodus of 16 call takers and have not yet recovered.ā
At the time of the report adding that: āThe unit is budgeted for 21 call takers, but currently employees only six. The high stress, understaffed, chaotic environment has resulted in overtime rates, high turnover rates, and low retention rates.ā
The report also noted equipment issues: āThe phones, the radios, and the CAD system are all different and donāt talk to each other. The unit is grossly neglected and needs immediate attention.ā
āI think that this merits an investigation,ā said Calvo. āMore importantly than pointing fingers, we need to understand what we are going to do about this.ā
But the rest of the city council didnāt agree, he said.
āMy goal was, letās just solve the problem, forget about who is to blame, letās just solve it,ā said Calvo.
After he couldnāt convince the rest of the council to launch a related investigation, he asked for documents to try to identify solutions.
He wanted emails from over the past two years between the mayorās office and 911 center that contained specific terms: āabandoned call, lack of personnel, missed calls,ā generating about 10,000 emails.
āInitially, I met with the city clerk, with staff, and they said, āWe are going to provide you the emails. Thereās no problem just give us some time, so we can compile it, put it on a flash drive and give it to you,ā recalled Calvo.
But then, citing labor costs to redact the documents, and the councilās decision not to formally investigate the documented 911 call center deficiencies, the city is now telling the elected councilman that it would cost him $7,000 of his own money to get the documents.
Mayor Esteban Bovo Jr. said that the request is not city business, so he will have to pay out of pocket.
āThe council has told him and actually shut him down. What he is doing, we would charge any other resident . . . "
Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez Sr. said that āpublic records are public records. Never in history has the city charged a sitting member of the council, doing their work, for public records,ā he said.
The current mayor said that there is no issue with the 911 call center. āThis is a dangerous narrative that creates a story that we are failing the residents of the city of Hialeah,ā said Bovo.
Calvo also sees a ānarrativeā in the data: The numbers, he said, tell a story.
āThe 911 department in Hialeah is not operating as required by the state, it is not meeting the minimum guidelines and essentially calls are being unanswered and people are being put at risk unnecessarily. The mayor is preventing me from acting upon the duties and the powers vested in me as a council member,ā said Calvo.
David Weinstein, a former state and federal prosecutor, said that it doesnāt only boil down to a legal issue but it is a political issue.
āThe people in the city are entitled to know how their 911 call center operates,ā said Weinstein, who reviewed the court case the city cited in its legal opinion on this issue.
āIt is a circuit court decision, it is not a court of appeals decision, and it is not a circuit court that is in our circuit, so while it may influence a judge in this particular circuit to come up with a decision, it is not binding on that judge,ā said Weinstein.
Calvo said heās just trying to do the job voters elected him to do by being informed on the issue.
āIt is outlined in the city charter, clearly the powers and duties of this position, the voters elected me, and that duty includes to make inquiries, to make investigations into municipal affairs of the city when there is a good faith belief that there is something going wrong. I have to, in good conscience, follow through on it and figure out what is going on, and ask the tough questions. We know that there is a problem, the problem has been proven, the 911 department is not operating as required by the state, it is not meeting the minimum guidelines and essentially calls are being unanswered and people are being put at risk unnecessarily,ā said Calvo.
He believes the situation raises a bigger issue about transparency in government.
Calvo believes that if he canāt get access to the documents, what can the public at large get?
āI think this is ridiculous. We live in a democracy. In the United States of America, you are entitled to public records and you should be able to have access,ā he said.